STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A flier advertising an upcoming picnic of the Filipino American Association of Staten Island greets customers at Phil Am Foods in Rosebank — the notice taped to the front window, alongside church listings and advertisements for apartments, is written in English and Tagalog, the Spanish-infused national language of the Philippines.

Inside the store, which for nearly three decades has served as a crossroads for Filipino Staten Islanders, the neatly arranged shelves and refrigerators beckon with the products of home: Powdered tropical fruit drinks, paper-thin rice wrappers used to fry spring-role-like lumpia and salted duck eggs, to name a few. It is even possible to order lechon — a whole roast pig — to be catered at a party ($250 and up, depending on size).

“The community has gotten bigger from when I opened in 1985,” said owner Felix Imperial as he stood in the ready-made food area, behind a display of Dinguguan, a chocolatey-looking delicacy made of pork, vinegar, onion, peppers and dark beef blood packed in to-go containers.

Imperial arrived in Queens, as a young man, from the Bicol region of the country, east of Manila. After establishing himself and a business in that borough, he settled in New Springville, where he raised a family.

His oldest son recently graduated from college and has joined him in the store, working by his side.

“It’s not eight hours a day. It’s long hours every day of my life,” said Imperial with a smile. He said business has been fundamentally steady over the years, describing how many of his shoppers hail from Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, South Asia and even African countries, then lamenting about how the recent increase in bridge tolls is keeping away his regular customers from Brooklyn and New Jersey.

According to the 2010 Census, 5,224 Staten Islanders identify as Filipino, and they live in neighborhoods across the Island, with the largest group, of 948, in the New Springville and Travis area.

That number has grown from 2000, when there were 4,590 Filipinos on the Island.

“More Filipinos are coming here. They come from Brooklyn, from the city; here on Staten Island it’s so quiet, like forest — they love that,” said Bert Olimpo, president of the Filipino American Association, which has about 800 families as members.

“I think when they decide to leave the city, they come to Staten Island and buy their own homes.”

The community has, for decades, been very visible in the health care industry in the borough, as nurses, physicians and medical attendants and technicians, said Olimpo, himself a retired corrections officer, who moved to the Island from Albany, after spending his childhood in the Philippine capital city of Manila.

“Filipinos are close-knit; they stay with family,” said Olimpo, describing how the senior center in Stapleton these days bustles with older Filipinos.

“People come here because they have cousins, aunts, others here and they know it is a safe place.”